


Lethe

by Corvid_Knight



Series: Mutantstuck [16]
Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Homestuck
Genre: Dave has PTSD, Gen, I cannot stress enough how weird the family dynamics are in this fic, M/M, Protective Siblings, cloning, complicated family structure, marvelstuck, this looks like a bro apology fic but i swear it's not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-30 01:25:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19031914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvid_Knight/pseuds/Corvid_Knight
Summary: An exploratory check of one of Rose's premonitions leads to several unexpected discoveries—some new, and one from the past. That second one is the one that's going to cause the most problems.playlist for this fic ishere!Suggestions for more songs to put on it are welcome!





	1. Dave

You've got a weird feeling from the second that you drop through Roxy's portal and wave off Hal's offer of a hand up. Like, the place looks like a pattern for the stereotypical control room everybody uses in movies and shit—banks of cameras, way too many keyboards, logbooks 'n shit scattered in messy heaps pretty much everywhere—but you get a bad vibe above and beyond that inspired by the shitty decor scheme. Can't even articulate what it is, other than...bad. 

"Everything was shut down when Roxy dropped in," Dirk says absently. He's studying the one active monitor that's not showing either static or a camera feed; you have no clue what the ranks of numbers up on it mean. "It took a hell of a jolt to get everything to start pulling juice off the grid on its own, too—I think it was actually shut down, not just left inactive. I can't tell, though, because for some reason the usage records are behind a firewall..." 

"Dirky, I think maybe you oughtta put those on the back burner." Roxy's frowning at one of the other screens as she tells him that, her nose maybe a couple inches away from it. 

"Why?" Technically, you're not the one who should be asking—she _was_ talking to Dirk, after all—but hey, you're curious. Curious enough to step over there next to her, lean in and check out what she's so interested in. "Wait—shit, is that—" 

The monitor's in black-and-white, because of course it is—this is a pure surveillance setup, not voyeurism. Still, you can see the room on the other side of the camera well enough: pretty damn plain, maybe twenty feet square, bare walls smeared with what you suspect are some kind of murals. The only pieces of furniture you can see are an overturned bookcase, some kind of computer setup, and a bed. A bed with a kid sprawled out on it, half-wrapped in what looks like some kind of fluffy blanket. 

The blanket ain't the really weird thing, though. No, the monitor may be small and there may be no color, but it's hella high quality. Plenty clear enough for you to see the boy's face. And you _know_ that face. 

"I'll get to the other rooms," Dirk says irritably, before you can find your voice again. "This is the center; we need to—" 

" _Dirk._ " You only realize that Hal's joined you and Roxy when he says his twin's name, in a tone that absolutely demands attention from whoever he's addressing. "I'm fairly sure that this is more important than working out the tech, bro." 

"...what?" Behind you, you hear the soft sound of a wheeled chair rolling across the floor, as Dirk pushes back from the keyboard. "Hal, what the hell are you—holy _fuck._ That's—is that—" 

"Yeah." Well, you still can't take your eyes off the screen, but at least you have the self-awareness necessary to answer him. "That's, uh..." 

"You," Hal finishes, when it becomes obvious that you're not going to do it. "At least. He appears to look like it." 

"...okay, yeah, that's more important than the tech. I'll have the location in five."

* * *

Unfortunately, it isn't even close to that easy. Dirk taps away at the keyboard for ten solid minutes before he starts to swear at it under his breath; Hal lets that continue for maybe eight more before he more-or-less dumps Dirk out of the chair to take his place. 

He's a lot more quiet, but no more successful; three and a half minutes more, and Hal tips the chair back and crosses his arms. "They have _really_ good security measures. On the weirdest shit, too; who ever heard of blocking access to security camera pairings, from the room security's _based_ in? Unless I do a dive—" 

"Don't." Dirk scowls up at the screen like it's wronged him personally. For all you know, maybe it did. "Did you run up against any of the firewalls yet?" 

"Yeah, but I backed off instead of trying to bash my way through." 

"I went the blunt force route. The protections shift semi-randomly; if I didn't know better I'd say that it was _you_ controlling them." 

Hal glances down to where Dirk's still sitting on the floor. "...me, or an true AI." 

"Not any AI I've ever had my hands on." 

"Hm. Don't like that." Hal sighs and leans forward, his hands going to the keyboard again. "Look, I've got it narrowed down to one of two rooms; I can give you an obvious path to both, you choose the order you check them in?" 

"We could split up—" Roxy starts. 

You, Dirk, and Hal all cut her off in near-perfect harmony. " _No._ " 

It's Dirk that continues. "We stay in _pairs,_ Roxy. Hal and I stay here and keep working on cracking the operations center; you and Dave can check the rooms. If that's a current feed, maybe you can get some info from whoever that is." 

"Dirk, do you _really_ think I'm going to get fooled by a simple loop or rerun tape? I'm not stupid—I _did_ check the time signature of that feed, you know." 

"I think whoever set this shit up can probably bypass normal telltales, actually." Dirk shrugs, rolling to his feet and crossing the room to collect the other chair. The other chair happens to be covered in what you're guessing is important paperwork—well, it is for a second, anyway. Then Dirk tips the chair, dumping paper everywhere, and drags it over so he can sit next to Hal. "We'll work on sorting out whether that's a good guess while you check the rooms. Be _careful._ " 

"Am I ever not careful?" (Yes. Yes you are. More or less constantly. You have a problem.) 

Dirk doesn't even look up at that ridiculous question. Hal does, though, giving you a quick eye-roll. No verbal challenge, though, just, "The power's off everywhere but here and a few of the rooms; I'll be turning on the lights in the hallways you need to pass through. Stay out of the dark, and you'll be fine." 

"I found the PA systems," Dirk adds. "We should be able to hear everything you say, and answer anything you need us to." 

"Great." Roxy's still examining the other screens; you grab her arm, pulling her towards the door and adding over your shoulder, "Oh yeah—one of y'all needs to text Rose." 

"What? Why?" From his blank expression, Dirk honestly has no clue where you're going with this. Hal's face suggests that _he_ does, though. Also that he reallly doesn't like the direction you're gonna take. 

You take it anyway. "I think this is the point where we have to loop D and Wade in." 

Before the two of them can agree or argue, you're out the door and into the hall, with Roxy trailing right behind you.

* * *

It's a good thing Hal's marking the hallways, because every fucking foot of them looks exactly the same—bare beige walls, broken every fifty feet or so by dull metal doors that are _also_ virtually identical. The only difference you see is the numbers above the doors—nonsequential, you think, although since they're in binary you're not totally sure—and the little lights set into the keypads that seem to take the place of doorknobs. Most of those are red, with the occasional green. You're not sure what those mean, but you're guessing that right now you don't need to know. 

The halls branch in more than one place, but Hal's path only turns twice—once right, once left—before you come to the end of the lit section. As promised, there's two doors, directly across from each other. 

...great, now you have to make a choice. You stop, look from one door to the other, and then look over at Roxy. She looks back at you, then shrugs and starts digging in her pockets. 

"Rox, what are you doing." 

"Lookin' for a coin, duh." She flashes you a sarcastic grin, huffing as she comes up empty. "Want me to do the eenie-meenie-minie-moe thing instead?" 

" _Very scientific,_ " Hal's voice says dryly from a speaker set into the ceiling above your head. " _I have an app that'll flip a coin for you, though._ " 

"Nah, we got it." You glance between the two doors again, take a couple seconds to think it over. "Can you open the one on the right?"

" _Can do. One second._ " 

It's more like a minute, but you'll let that slide, because after that minute's nearly up the door buzzes and the lock whirs, and the light above the keypad goes from yellow to green. You should _probably_ make sure Roxy's ready, but fuck it. You've got that weird feeling again, strong enough that you'll rethink this if you take another second. The top button on the keypad says OPEN; you push it, and it does. 

The fact that this is the wrong room is something you know immediately. The walls ain't marked, the shelving's still standing up; pretty much the only things that match up are the computer unit and the bed. The bed only _kind_ of matches up, too; yeah, it's there, but there's nobody on it. 

Now is when you should back out. Now is when you should shut the goddamn door. It's the wrong room. 

It's not an _empty_ room, though. No, there's somebody in here—not a kid with your face, but a man in a loose white shirt and dark sweatpants, a guy with straight blond hair that looks like it's never been touched by anything sharper than a knife, a man who brings up all that vague uneasiness that hit you the moment you dropped through Roxy's portal. He's on his feet. back against the wall, watching the door with an intensity that'd scare you if you weren't used to it from Rose and Dirk. 

You step into the room and his face totally changes as he sees you. Guarded apprehension becomes mixed disbelief and confusion, then something that you can't read at all. 

The last one makes his eyes go wide. Shit, they're _orange._

Oh, fuck. 

"D?" the man says, and it's one word, one syllable, one goddamn _letter_ , but it's enough. Those orange eyes made you think _Dirk_ but that's wrong, you were wrong, you were so fucking wrong and you know that voice and you know _him_ and fuck, no, _no_ — 

You only realize you're backing up when you bump into Roxy. She's only halfway through the doorway, which means you're stuck in the same room with _him._

And he's taking a step towards you, hands out like he thinks you'd ever want to touch him. "D, jesus fuck—what happened to your _eyes,_ bro, did I just fuckin' forget what color they were? How—" 

Okay, nope, if you stay frozen up he's gonna get closer and he's gonna touch you and you absolutely cannot fucking do that. Roxy yelps, or at least starts to; she doesn't get a chance to finish, because you slam time up into high gear, push her backwards and out of the room, slam your hand down against the CLOSE button. 

It's too slow to slide shut. Of course it is; you're experiencing time at six seconds per second right now. To the man on the other side, it's closing fast enough to keep him in; still, you can't take the waiting. Can't take watching it slowly slide shut, blocking _him_ and his stunned face off way too slowly. 

You want to run. You want to take off, get out, never come anywhere near here again. 

You can't leave Roxy. 

You turn to put you back against the door you haven't opened yet, cover your ears with both hands, and close your eyes. Dirk's gonna have to come snap you out of this, because no way are you doing anything under your own power any time soon.


	2. D

Rose's explanation leaves a lot to be desired. Like. A _lot._ You know your kids run all kinds of semilegal clandestine shit based on the hotlines Hal and Dirk keep active—hell, you've wondered about banning them from doing it, you _might_ have banned them if you thought they'd actually cooperate with that ban—but the news that they also follow up on damn near every premonition that Rose has? That's new. 

It's unsettling. Especially with what they've turned up this time—you've heard the conspiracy theories, about human cloning and shit, but it's something else for Rose to inform you that they've found some kind of facility with a kid who's virtually identical to Dave. And it gets _worse_ , even though you would have sworn that wasn't possible; by the time that you get halfway done quizzing Rose, Roxy and Dave are back. 

Roxy is the one to explain what they saw. ( _Who_ they saw.) Dave can't contribute anything to the discussion, not that he needs to—you can _see_ how fucked he is, and that's a better argument for the reality of what Roxy's trying to explain than any amount of empirical evidence would have been. Like, one part of you wants to make the logical argument, that this shit ain't happening, you haven't seen _him_ for over a decade and he's been dead for the last two years of that time—but Dave knows _exactly_ who he saw, and you believe him. 

Fuck. 

It's not really him. You know it's not—Wade Wilson killed your brother, put a sword through his throat on the roof of an apartment building in Houston one cool December morning, and good fucking riddance to that abusive piece of shit, but still. _Still._ Leaning over Dirk's shoulder, watching the image of the echo of a dead man on a black-and-white monitor, you're having issues remembering that little fact. 

It _looks_ like him. Like your brother, maybe ten or fifteen years ago, when he still had his hair grown out, when he cultivated that edgy-grungy Kurt Cobain bullshit and never admitted he was doing it—god, you remember those days too fucking well. You remember how he glared at anyone who looked at him or at you sideways, dared each and every person in every waiting room the two of you passed through to say one fucking word about who you were, invited more than one dumbass to step outside for deliberate misconceptions that were more bigotry than confusion. 

Why do you miss that stubborn fucker so much all of a sudden? Actually, that's a stupid question; you have a better one for your twins. "How the hell did you two get him in there?, exactly?" They couldn't have just _asked._ If he's anything like you remember him being when he looked like that, asking nicely would've just led to more of a clusterfuck than you're seeing. 

Dirk solves the mystery, though. "The rooms are fitted with dispersal systems." 

"We gassed him and dragged him down to one of..." Hal frowns, hits a couple keys, and reads off the words that come up. "Ah. That is, and I quote, 'Preparation Room Alpha Eight.' Catchy." 

"Preparation? Preparation for what?" 

"You don't want to know. Hal found some of the research notes from a couple years ago." Dirk makes a face, and looks to his brother. 

Who picks up the thread like this is something they've rehearsed a dozen times. "Yeah, think of the _Saw_ movies. Then cross that with those CoH vivisection tapes from a couple years ago, when they tried to make a case on mutants being separate from humans—" 

"Metas, Hal. _Metahumans_." 

"D, _please_ get over that, would you? We're mutants. Some of us want to be called metahumans; you can slap that label on them." (He's right. You need to work on that.) "Anyway, it's not a pretty picture." 

You have to circle back to that old tried and true word of reaction to situations like this: _fuck._ You stare at the man onscreen like enough concentration will somehow make him aware of your desire for him to straighten up, look at the goddamn camera, let you see his face. It doesn't work. "So, he's the one who was running this shit." 

Dirk actually laughs. Not in a good way. "As far as we can tell? He's one of the experiments." 

"Well...shit." 

"Do you want to wait until Wade finishes watching Karkat calm Dave down and let him—" 

Damn, that's tempting. But you've got more guts than that. "Nah. I could kick his ass when we were fifteen, I can damn well do it now if I need to. How do I get from here to there, again?"

* * *

He straightens up when you open the door, back going straight and stiff enought that you instantly think of military training or Catholic schools or some shit like that—something with forced discipline, something you couldn't even imagine your brother going through and cooperating with. He doesn't turn to face you, though. Hell, other than that first reflexive jolt he doesn't even _move_ , not until you've circled the table and taken the chair opposite him. 

Damn, maybe you should have worn your shades. Too late now; if the shock you're feeling at seeing a man who might as well be a ghost shows on your face, you'll just have to work around it. 

"Ambrose." If he expects you to call him _bro_ again, he's got another think coming. 

But even using his name seems to be more than he expected; his eyes go wide and he hunches over for a second, head dipping before he looks back up at you. The raw relief on his face is something you're not remotely prepared for; you don't think you've _ever_ seen an emotion this unguarded on his face before. It's a struggle to not react to it, one you're not totally sure that you come out on top of. 

"Aw, shit, D—" (fuck, his _voice_ , you think about how Hal and Dirk sound like your brother all the goddamn time but there's a difference between sounding like someone and _sounding like_ them, this isn't an echo or a simalcrum, this is _him_ ) "—D, man, it's you, isn't it? Really you? I thought—thought I was losin' it, okay, I thought—how the hell did you find m—" 

"I didn't. The kids did." Oh, yeah, the kids. For a second there you forgot that you were furious at him. "Dirk, Roxy, Hal? _Dave_? Remember Dave, you fucking piece of _shit_?" 

You don't know what you expected from him at that. Definitely not the hurt confusion that he gives you. "Of course I remember Dave—I _never_ meant to leave him, D, I swear! I don't fuckin' know what happened—the last thing I remember is, fuck, being pissed 'cause Egbert wasn't up for a booty call and I was gonna have to go to somebody else to cool off from arguin' with you—" 

...what. "Be a tad more specific, Ambrose. Which fight with me?" 

"Wasn't quite a fight." He sighs and rubs one hand across his eyes, bearing down hard enough that you wonder what he's trying to scrub off. "Just—talkin' about Roxanne. How we were gonna have to move up to New York, help her get her shit together." Another second, and he lowers his hand enough to meet your eyes again. "Fuck, D, is she okay? 's been five years, I know, but—" 

Five years? _Five_? "Closer to fifteen than five, man." 

"...what?" 

"It's been twelve or thirteen years since we left California; you went back to Texas, I went to New York." And, because you're both confused and pissed and those two emotions leave no room for the compassion of holding back shit that'll hurt him: "Two and a half years since you died, and Dave came home to us." 

He just...stares at you. And god help you, but you see your twins in how shock wipes everything off his face, turns him into a blank slate. He stares at you, and you stare back, and for a very fucking long time neither of you say anything. 

Right when you open your mouth—can't handle another second of silence, even if you don't actually know what else you might have to say to him—he shakes his head, clears his throat, and asks, "I died? No bullshit?" 

"No bullshit. You fuckin' died." 

"How? _Why_?" 

Damn. Look, you're beginning to suspect that he really isn't the same as the man who put the scars on your nephew who might as well be your son; you should show some compassion here. Cut the guy a little slack. Prevericate about what happened, maybe outright lie. 

But then again, you're still angry. Angry D ain't the best man in the world. "You know who Deadpool is?" When he nods, you tell him, "Yeah. He killed you." 

He thinks about that, for a moment. Then his eyes narrow. "He's a hitman. Who hired him?" 

"Fuckin' _guess._ " Now you're just being mean. There's no way he can possibly— 

"Church of Humanity." 

The way he says it—no hesitation, complete confidence, like he knows what the hell he's talking about—throws you for a loop. "Dude. Why would—" _Why would they kill one of their big advocates,_ you mean to say, but he doesn't let you finish.

"Wait a sec." He raises a hand, looks up at the corner of the room. You can't see any sign of the camera there, but if he thinks that's where it is you're sure he's right; Ambrose's always been the one who can spot that kind of shit. "This is gonna look aggressive, maybe. I'd appreciate it if y'all let my hide stay in one piece." 

You feel like that's an alarming statement, but there isn't quite enough time for that alarm to kick in. Look, you know that your brother had abilities caused by a mutated gene since shortly after his death, but that knowledge doesn't translate to _seeing_ it—seeing him take a deep breath and then damn near disappear, become a blur, something that only exists for not quite long enough for you to flinch hard away from him as he moves toward you and away again. You don't have time to move, really, before he's circled the table, touched your shoulder, and seated himself back in his own chair again. 

" _Fuck._ " 

"Yeah." The man opposite you grimaces. "Remember how you were on my ass over the mutant shit? Yeah, you can tell me 'I told you so.' Hell, you can tattoo it on my ass if that'll make all that shit I said any less—" 

"Bro, at this point I have no idea what I want to say to you, but 'I told you so' is pretty close to the bottom of the list right now." 

"D, this shit runs in the family. You gotta get tested—" 

"Oh, I know it runs in the family. Reaux and me are just about the only ones who _aren't_ metas—Dirk and Hal are, Roxy—" 

"Who the hell is Hal?" 

"—Rose, Dave—" 

Shit. You shouldn't have mentioned Dave; his eyes light up with some emotion that he keeps mostly off his face. "Dave. He's like this too?" 

"We're not talking about him." 

"What the fuck—D, he's my kid, you know I didn't just abandon him with you, why the hell do you think you got the right to keep shit about my own goddamn baby from me—" 

"He's not a fucking baby, asshole!" Rationally, you understand that shouting at him makes exactly no sense; his memories stop years before any of the shit he did to mark Dave. In his mind, Dave's eight or nine years old, unmarked and untraumatized, an innocent kid. Unfortunately, you know better. "He's sixteen, you fucking _saw_ him—" 

The look on his face stops you cold, even though it takes him a full minute of opening and shutting his mouth to get over the shock that's keeping him silent. "No. No, that ain't—" 

Stop. Anything you say now is just going to be cruel, so keep your mouth shut. 

Who are you kidding, shutting up isn't something you know how to do. "Yeah. He didn't tell me what happened. Fuck, he _couldn't._ " 

"I—I thought." He sighs, too shakily, and reaches up to push hair back from his eyes with a hand that isn't any less shaky. "I thought, y'know, he was _you._ God, he looks like you, D...that was my lil' man? Really?" 

"Don't call him that." 

Half of you expects to get a rise out of him for that, but it doesn't happen. He just stares at you with those troubled, familiar eyes. "Yeah. Yeah, fine. That was Dave?" 

"It was." 

"He was...fuckin' terrified. Of me. Of _me_." 

"You hurt him." 

" _No_ —D, I swear, I'd _never_ —" 

In your pocket, your phone chimes with an incoming text; he twitches at the sound and goes silent. The movement's just barely noticable, but you catch it and you file it away as info that you might want later, as you pull out your phone to see what Dirk or Hal wants of you. 

The message doesn't tell you that. It's just a link. Before you can click to open it, Dirk's voice comes over the intercom. 

" _Give it to him._ " 

"What is it?" Fuck, you hope there's actually an audio pickup in here, for him to hear that question. 

There is. " _Proof, because we don't have time for you to try to outline how much of a scumbag he was right now. Leave the phone and come back up to the control room; Dave and the others have a new issue we could use your help with._ " 

There's several issues in that sentence that you'd like to address (mostly why the fuck Dave's here, instead of safely home, nestled in a shitton of blankets with Karkat) but you might as well wait and handle them face-to-face, so you do as you're told and toss your phone down. Whether or not he picks it up is a mystery that you're not all that interested in solving right now; before he moves to reach for it, you're letting the door swing shut and lock behind you again.


	3. Davesprite

Technically, your name is not Davesprite. 

Technically, you don't have a name, just the string of binary code tattooed around your forearm indicating which chunks of DNA were added to the prime specimen, what was poked and rearranged and changed to make you different from him. Hell, technically there ain't a _you_ , just a goddamn experiment. A piece of scientific property. An _it._

Fuck technicalities. Your name is Davesprite, you are _you_ , you're stretched out half-conscious on your bed with your wings swept up around yourself because the room's never quite the right temperature and blankets make you feel anxious. It's kind of a restriction thing, you think, but your own wings are different; being swaddled in feathers almost makes you feel safe. 

_Almost._

The soft sound of the door opening puts a stop to that pretty damn quickly, though; before it even gets halfway cracked you're off the bed and crouched in the corner where the bookshelf was until you dragged it out of the way. Every fuckin' feather on your shoulders and neck puffs out as you sit there and wait, like some birdy instinct leftover from the avian portion of your DNA thinks that that's somehow gonna make a difference to a guy with a tranq gun. Hell, you think that you being fluffed up makes it _easier_ for them to nail you. 

However, the guys standing in the door don't seem to have a tranq gun. Now, it's been a while since you've had any human contact (six weeks at least since any voice came over the intercom, maybe two full months since the door opened last) but this doesn't seem at all like the teams that come to subdue you for whatever the hell tests Sinister's thought up this time. Like, it's been a while, but you know what grunts look like, and this ain't it. 

Two of them are kids. You're pretty damn sure that the two shorter ones are kids; one's obviously another experiment, one who looks more like you than some of the first-gens do but not as much as Davepeta. He's not derived from your DNA, that's for sure—no avian traits, no wings and no feathers, no orange-gold tint across his hair or skin. Hell, there isn't much of any color to him, but for his eyes— _those_ are bright blood red, a color that's pretty much nonexistent with the other experiments. Something about the difficulty of retaining lesser mutations through the process used to create all y'all. He's smart enough to play up that color, though, wearing it on his shirt and splatter-painted across his shoes; you wonder how many hoops they made him jump through to get those lil' perks. 

Probably less than you had to go through for the paints on your walls. You still think that if you hadn't finally curled up and refused to perform at all, they would never have handed the shit over. Then again, you're still a little surprised that you didn't just get terminated for that little stunt. It was what you were expecting, anyway, but you couldn't function without color. 

The other kid doesn't have much color, either. Small, chunky, grey skin, black hair with little nubs that're probably horns poking out of it, black-and-grey sweater and sweatpants. He looks nothing like you or any other experiment you've run across; honestly, he doesn't really look all that human. 

Eh, there's some weird mutants out there. Even with the limited access to the internet that you've earned over your lifetime, you know that. 

The one adult behind the other two might be one of the weird ones. He's wearing a red-and-black mask, though, so you have no idea. To tell the truth, the mask isn't really all that interesting, just a leather covering that's meant to hide rather than protect...but the hilts you can see peeking out from where he has a pair of swords strapped to his back ( _katanas_ , the prime's memories whisper in the back of your mind, _they're katanas and you should have one in your hand right now_ ) are very fucking interesting. Interesting enough that you're seriously considering going for him instead of just going along with whatever today's ordeal turns out to be, just to see if you can knock him down for long enough to get your hands on at least one of those hilts. You know that it won't last more than a minute—the other two will take you down before you have time to actually _use_ the blade—but maybe it'd be worth it. 

You'll think about it. Anyway, until he steps into your room, you're not doing anything. Even killing a couple grunts wouldn't be worth what'll happen if you step into the hall without being told you can. 

And _apparently_ he's going to let the kids make the first move. They don't seem too interested in doing that, though, to the point where your feathers are starting to smooth down again purely because birdy instincts can't imagine immediate danger lasting more than as long as you can hold your breath. (Which you are not doing. That makes the dart hurt more when it goes in.) Stupid feathers; the extra wait just makes it more likely that this is some kind of test, which you might already be failing by not doing anything. 

Hm. Let's try...bird noises. That's always a good move, right? Plus, you're already making softly anxious cooing noises deep in your chest; it's just a matter of increasing the volume and feeling the coos turn into rough caws in your throat, like the sounds the crows who contributed roughly half of your gene sequences might have made. Three caws; then you bite your tongue and ruffle your feathers back up until you're satisfied that even the finest down on your head is fluffed to the max. 

That doesn't really have any effect, other than to make the second guy frown harder and the first one crack a smile. On second thought, though, that smile is a goddamn momentous occasion in and of itself—when was the last time you had someone smile at you without following it up with something meant to make you regret it? That smile is genuine enough that you don't feel _that_ much of an uptick in your fear level when the one who looks like you nudges the other aside, stepping forward to drop to his knees a few feet from you. Like, you'd be crazy to not get more worried about having him this close, but still. 

Red eyes. _Really_ red. Super fucking bright, vibrant, you want some paint that color because the fuckers who supply you with shit won't give you anything that doesn't dry close to the color of brick dust. (No, you've never seen real brick dust, there's no bricks in this shithole, but the prime knew what color they were, and so you do as well.) 

(Maybe this is the moment when you start to wonder about this guy.) 

"Hey, dude," he says, shuffling a couple inches closer when you don't instantly lunge forward to claw the shit out of him. "What're you supposed to be, man? Me, plus a crow? Big ol' orange crow?" 

Hm. Play dumb? Nah, that's no fun. "Eh. Close enough." His eyes widen when you answer him; damn, has he not met the other experiments, not realized you all sound pretty much the same? Sure, you're a lil' hoarser from the crow in you, but it's not like even you vary _that_ much from the prime. "What's your gimmick?" 

"Gimmick?" Oh, sure, _he_ gets to play dumb. 

"How you vary from the prime. Duh." When he just gives you a blank look, you roll your eyes and fold your wings, reaching up to start preening your feathers into proper sleekness again. "Dude. Are you _seriously_ another one like the speedster?" 

If you'd been asked to take a guess on it, you would have said that this guy's as pale as he could get. You'd've been wrong, though; when you mention the experiment housed in the room across from yours, he flinches back, color that you didn't realize was there draining from his face. 

The other kid growls loud enough that _you_ flinch and puff back up. He doesn't head for you, though; no, he steps right up next to the other experiment and falls to his knees, one arm going around—y'know what, fuck it, if you have to think in singular masculine pronouns for one more goddamn second you are going to do a backflip through the wall, you'll risk whatever repercussions might come for the answer to one lil' question. 

"Okay, forget the speedster. Which ones are you? Like, I don't mean numbers, we all say fuck the rules at some point and pick out names; what'd y'all go with?" 

"Shit, sorry." The pale one shakes his head like he's getting over a hard slap, leaning into his companion a lil' harder. "Dave. I'm Dave. He's Karkat. The douche in the mask is Wade." 

"Douche? Hey, _excuse_ me?" Well, _he's_ not an experiment; you don't recognise that voice at all. He could be a handler, but what kind of handler would let experiments out of the right room, unrestrained and unmedicated? For that matter, what kind of handler would stand for being called a douche? "I'm not a douche." 

"You totally are." Dave (who needs to get a better name; who does he think he is? The prime? Like irony is one thing, this is another one) glances away from you for a moment, long enough to grin up at the man in the mask. Yeah, that's not a look anyone would give a handler. "C'mon, it's basically me calling you dad, right? Same letter, same—" 

Oh for fuck's sake. "Hey, quick question. Are you like, delusional? Or are you just stupid?" 

" _Fuck_ you," Karkat snarls, and you growl right back at him as your feathers puff up in alarm—are you gonna have to fight him? He's got claws sharp as yours, teeth even sharper, you _hate_ getting bit— 

But Dave touches Karkat's hair, whispers something to him that might as well be wordless for all you hear of it, and the snarl and scowl dissolve into something almost laughably calm. That's kind of neat, actually. Then he looks back up at you. "Far as I know? I'm not delusional. Paranoid, sometimes, but delusions ain't ever come into my shit." 

"You're not stupid either, dumbass," Karkat grumbles against Dave's shoulder. It doesn't sound like an actual insult, though; you're gonna chalk that up to some kind of irony. 

"Eh, the jury's still out on that one and you know it." Dave shrugs, those red eyes still fixed on you. "Anyway, that sounded like a rhetorical question, right?" 

"No shit. Dude, even if they left you with the prime's memories you _gotta_ know they don't let you have shit. He ain't your dad, he ain't _anything_ , or they woulda taken him. Hell, I can't fuckin' believe they haven't gotten you to give up the stupid Dave shit—the prime's only part of us, we can't be just that, you—" 

Dave's shaking his head. Why the hell is he doing that. 

"No, dude. Really. My name's Dave—I'd say the one and only, but I feel like that's kinda an insult at this point." He gives you another once-over, like there's something he's gonna see this time that he hasn't seen every time they let him get near a mirror. "I mean. Other'n the feathers 'n shit, you could pass for me anywhere." 

Okay, yep, this guy's batshit. He can't be the prime. Like, he—that's—fuck it, you'll indulge this stupid shit just far enough to ask for proof. 

"Let me see your arm." 

"What?" 

"Your arm, you dense fucker, your _arm_ —oh for fuck's sake, look." You rearrange your wings, push your left sleeve up past your elbow, show him the thin line of binary code that circles your forearm like a bracelet of black _1_ s and _0_ s. "One here, one on the back of your neck, but I'm guessing you're not gonna turn your back on me, right?" 

"Not doing that sounds like a great plan to me," Wade chimes in from the doorway. "I like you better when you're not healing a severed brainstem."

Dave ignores him, pulls back from Karkat, and rolls his sleeve up with much more care than you spent on yours. His skin ain't even close to unmarked—you've only seen that many scars on the unfortunate experiments whose DNA includes something that gives them a drive to escape or to punish themselves or whatever the _fuck_ makes them carve at their skin until Sinister gives up and terminates them or lets them terminate themselves—but it's just scars. Lighter marks, not darker. 

No numbers. No thin bracelet of ink. Nothing. 

This kinda feels like being flipped upside down, and you've never been a big fan of the inversion table. The noise that comes out of you isn't even a proper caw; nope, that's not embarrassing enough, this is a startled, high-pitched _peep_. 

Welp. 

Time to fold your wings over your face, see how long it takes these three to extricate yourself from your own feathers. You give them three minutes, tops, but knowing your luck that's gonna be a lil' bit on the high side.


	4. Dave

D joins you on the floor of bird-you's room after maybe ten minutes of sitting and waiting for the kid to stop being a ball of orange feathers. If you weren't this interested in what he's painted on the walls, you'd probably be bored...but the art's plenty enough to keep you distracted. 

On one level, it could look like a mess—you're pretty sure that the paint's gotta be centimeters thick in some places, newer works layered over older ones with one showing through under the other like stacked lace. He's done portraits (god, so many of them, like a kaleidescope of fractured reflections of _you_ ) abstract designs, animals, diagrams of feathers or bones, and—fuck, are you really seeing this?—fucking Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff panels. Like, none that you recognise from D's old shit, and sure as hell not anything _you_ ever thought of, but it's not like those glorious idiots can be mistaken for anything else, even this far removed from their jpeggy origins. 

D notices them, too; you see him staring at one particular mural as he settles down next to you. "Holy shit, is that—" 

"Geromy? Hell yeah it is." You wave at a piece on the opposite wall. "He's got a gun now." 

"Huh. I like this kid's style." 

That gets birdy-Dave to rearrange his feathers slightly, just enough for orange eyes to peek out between all that fluff. You're gonna pretend you don't notice yet, though; hopefully Karkat'll keep his mouth shut until the kid decides to come out a bit more. He probably will, and Wade should be able to—

Wait, where the hell did Wade even go? Nevermind, he'll be fine. "Yeah, he's got some good shit. Kinda feels weird seeing it done this well, though...how'd it go with, uh..."

Fuck. Bro? Should you call him Bro? _Can_ you call him Bro? You're not sure you even _want_ to call him Bro. 

D knows exactly what you mean without getting the rest of the sentence, though. "We...had a talk. Not a super productive one, but hey. You win some, you lose some." 

"Dude." He's just _trying_ to be vague now. "You know that's not enough for me to just nod 'n shut up, right?" 

"It fucking _should_ be," Karkat growls, butting his head against your shoulder when you automatically reach up to pet around his horns and calm him down before he gets birdy-Dave riled up again. "Knock it _off_ , fucker—" 

"Okay, okay, no more papping 'til you give me the say-so—" 

"—you let me in there with that hoofbeastfucker for ten fucking minutes and I'll—" 

"Nope, nope nope nope." D huffs, shaking his head and running one hand through his hair. What he doesn't do is look at you, which is a good hint that he's pretty sure you're not gonna like whatever he's about to say next. "Okay. So. He's...not the same." 

"D. _Vague._ " 

"He thinks he's the real one. My brother, your dad? He, uh...apologised to me, for leaving you." 

"...leaving me." God, which time? He took off often enough, sure as hell never apologised for any of them. As far as you know, he didn't see anything wrong in testing you, like that or any other way. "I don't—" 

D holds up a hand; apparently, that wasn't all he had to say. "The last thing he can remember, you were two or three and we were talking about moving to New York. He doesn't fuckin' know about anything Bro did to you, Dave—shit, I told him Deadpool murdered him and he asked me if the fuckin' Church of Humanity hired him to do it." 

"Why would they—" _—kill someone who thinks the exact same way they do,_ you mean to finish, but D answers before you get any further. 

"He knows he's a metahu—a mutant. He knows he's a mutant."

_That_ strikes you speechless. You can't fucking make those two things add up; "Bro" can't exist in the same space as "self-aware mutant." There's no way. The goddamn world would fucking implode before the man who raised you would ever accept this, and even if you already _know_ that the man D talked to isn't technically the one you're thinking of, he's still the same on more than one level. _He_ thinks he's the same, doesn't he? You don't understand how—

You could probably keep chasing your tail like this for a couple hours, but bird-Dave breaks off your half-stunned train of thought by folding his wings back, smoothing his feathers down, and asking, "Are you guys talking about the speedster?" 

D blinks at him like he's seeing double. (Since you nearly had to pinch yourself when you heard that near-perfect echo of your own voice, you know how he feels.) "...I was kinda wondering if you talked." 

"Riiight, because animal-type mutation means I'm an idiot." Okay, there's no way that you know how to convey that level of sarcasm through a deadpan tone and a simple roll of your eyes. Nice to know that this kid has some skills you definitely don't. "You talked to the speedster?" 

"Yeah, I—" 

"Is he still okay?" 

Well. _That's_ not a question you expected to hear from someone who looks this much like you. From the way that Karkat and D are staring at the winged kid, you're guessing that they weren't any more prepared for it. 

Karkat recovers first, maybe because you're _still_ putting off explaining to him just how many of your mental quirks 'n shit are from your Bro. "Why the fuck do you care?" 

"I—" Oh, feathers are starting to fluff up again. You don't know if that's reflexive defensiveness or plain fear, but the kid's tone suggests the latter. "Who says I care? I didn't say I gave a shit about him. Uh, there—can't a guy be curious about who's still around 'n in one piece in this shithole without getting the fuckin' third degree? I'm just—" 

"You're _exactly_ like Dave." Karkat makes that little burring sound that's roughly equivalent to a snicker—so fucking different from his normal laugh, it took you weeks to figure out exactly what it meant and you were so excited when you puzzled it out that you told Rose and she asked you why the hell you didn't just _ask_ him and that question totally stumped you—and nuzzles against you until you reach up and start in on petting his hair again. "He gets word vomit when he's trying to convince people he doesn't give a shit about something too—" 

"Fuck _off_!" That's gotta match Karkat at his loudest, which you didn't think was possible. Then again, the crows do like to have screaming contests with him, and it's not always clear who the winners are. "He's just—he thinks he's real, he thinks he's a fuckin' prime, he thinks he's gonna get _out_ , and if you tell him different he's gonna—he's—" 

Bird-Dave goes abruptly silent, mouth trembling as he struggles for the right way to finish that sentence. He doesn't find it; instead, he squeezes his eyes shut, bursting into tears and little peeping sobs. 

You have _zero_ idea how you're supposed to handle this. 

Thankfully, D's still got those handy dandy parental instincts active; he groans and scoots forward, scooping the whole feathery mess of a kid into his lap and wrapping his arms around him. 

Okay. Cool. That should take this particular crisis off the plate...eventually. You're just gonna...lean against Karkat and go back to checking out the walls, take a break from engaging with this weird shit.

* * *

"They used to dose him with shit and dump him in here with me," the bird-kid—Davesprite, he said his name was; D was the only one who had the sense to ask—says, still nestled in his own wings and D's arms. He hasn't shown any signs of moving out of that protective embrace yet, and you have a feeling D ain't planning on prompting him to anytime soon. "Like, I dunno what the hell he was on—something to make him slow and fuck his head up, 'cause every time he was in here he thought I was somebody else." 

He glances at you, considering. Then he twists a bit to study D's face instead. 

"I'm guessing that's you, not him, huh?" 

"...probably, yeah. Far as he's concerned, Dave's like...seven or eight. A lil' kid." 

"Yeah, he, uh. He thought I was D too." You're not sure how you feel about that, honestly. On the one hand, it almost feels like the kind of insincere manipulative shit _your_ Bro would have pulled; on the other hand, D definitely seems to believe that it ain't a ploy. 

You don't know what you believe. 

Hell, you don't even know what you _want_ to believe. 

"He's not like Davepeta 'n me," Davesprite continues, breaking off your chain of thought yet again. "We have, like. An itty bit of the prime's—sorry, of _Dave's_ memories, but he's got _all_ of his prime's, right up to where Sinister's grunt took the DNA sample from him." 

"Sinister?" D asks. (Damn, you were hoping he'd know what the fuck is going on, not have questions for Davesprite.) (That was kind of a stupid hope.) "Is that, like—" 

"His name. The guy who ran this place." Davesprite shivers, orange feathers puffing back up a lil' bit. Maybe that's supposed to make him look bigger, but to you it's somehow got the opposite effect—he seems to shrink. like he's trying to disappear into himself and very nearly succeeding. "Like. His grunts ran it, I guess—none of us saw him in person unless shit was about to go down. New gens, terminations, new tests...y'know, _shit._ " 

"And he made all y'all. From me." 

Davesprite meets your eyes and gives you an ironic little twist of a smile. "Hey, stable time shit's super fucking rare, dude. Imagine how much people'd pay for somebody who could take a quick trip into next week and bring back news 'n shit? Or like, skip back and—"

"Yeah, I'd rather not imagine any of that," D mutters. "What about Ambrose?" 

"The speedster? Is that his name?" 

"The speedster, yeah. _That_ ain't a rare mutation—" 

"He wasn't that kind of experiment." Davesprite reaches up to start preening his feathers into smoothness again, frowning a little bit. "Fuck, I dunno what he was really for—he's the newest one, y'know? Like...something happened, a while ago. Out there, not in here...I mean, I guess Sinister terminating most of us counts as something happening in here, but it was about something out there. A tipping point, I remember somebody saying. Something about Sinister making a decision about the prime." 

Shit. 

You feel like you know what the tipping point was. The point where Sinister, whoever the fuck he is, realized that Bro wasn't gonna hit a plateau with the shit he put you through, that you weren't ever gonna snap and fight back more than you already did—maybe that you _couldn't_ —that your powers weren't gonna let you survive that shit forever. The obvious next leap of intuition says that eventually, _this_ Bro was meant to replace _your_ Bro. You don't know how that would've been done, what the fuck kind of game plan these guys had, but for some reason you're pretty damn sure that you're right about this. 

Again, you have no idea how to feel about this. Upset that it didn't happen? Super creeped out that this guy planned it? Mildly to moderately worried about how the fuck this guy knew this much about you, had access to your DNA to make this happen? Confused, just in general? All of the above? 

Yeah, all of the above. It's a really weird mental mix, the kind that's fertile ground for the growth of stunningly bad decisions. You know this, and you still go with your gut. "Hey, D?" 

"Yeah?" 

"You hang with Davesprite for a while. C'mon, Karkat." 

"What?" And of _course_ he resists being pulled to his feet. Not enough that you can't do it, just enough that he can be sure that you'll know he knows you're about to do something stupid. "If you think I'm about to let you lead me into whatever fucked-up, half-cocked—" 

"Chill, man. I gotta go talk to Hal 'n Dirk for a minute, is all." 

That gets him to move. You'll leave telling him that the control room and your cousins are just a pit stop until you're about to leave him with them and walk into whatever room they've stashed the echo of your brother in.


	5. Ambrose

These guys asked, before they put the collar on you. It's kinda a nice change, even if the one with the hair and eyes to match yours did panic a lil' bit when you made the mistake of testing the cuffs he chained you to the chair with. Hell, you understand that—these're kids, maybe sixteen or seventeen at the very most. They're still jumpy lil' shits; all kids are at that age. 

Eh. A shock ain't that bad. You've done worse wiring up security systems—D's taken you to the hospital for that shit before, had nurses call doctors who look at you like you're insane for trying to ground live wires to shit that ain't made to take it. That was your own stupidity, and this kinda is too. 

The collar ain't that bad, either, come to think of it. All the ones you've ever had slapped on you had shitty side effects—hell, all the ones you've ever _heard_ of had pretty damn bad side effects—but all this one's doing is...well, cutting off the shit that lets you do what you do. Damn weird, being able to flick your hand back and forth and still be able to _see_ it even at top speed. 

No headache. No dizziness. No bleeding from any noticeable orifices. No ringing in your ears—just the clatter of you yanking the chain back and forth. Fuck, you hope they don't knock you back out 'cause they think you're trying to break it. It'd be a goddamn stupid way to try and break a fuckin' steel chain, but hey, those two kids gave you the kind of dirty looks that mean they'd be _happy_ to take any excuse to fuck your shit up. 

You kinda wonder why they didn't. Going by the videos you spent twenty minutes or so watching (that was all you could take, you were gonna puke if you kept watching that shit, how the _fuck_ could anyone do that to a kid, how the _fuck_ did _you_ do that to your kid) you really fucking deserve to get the shit kicked out of you right now. 

Huh. Going by the way your wrist is starting to feel where the cuff keeps rubbing against it every time you jerk against the chain, you might be making a start on that yourself. Maybe a pathetic one, but it's something. 

Actually you should probably stop doing that now. 

Or not. Hell, a couple lil' rub burns'll heal fast enough that it's worth it to keep playing around with being restricted to a normal speed, right? It's not like you—

"Ambrose." 

Oh shit. 

The act of twisting around to face whoever opened the door is not a well thought through one—the cuffs bite into your wrists, making you immediately reevaluate your self-inflicted injuries as mid-level bruises underneath those rub burns. (Dumbass.) It actually hurts, enough that you drop back down into your seat without having gotten more than the briefest glimpse of him. 

It's enough to see where you fucked up the first time. He's younger than D. Different resting facial expression. And yeah, his eyes are closer to blood than red wine; funny, you always assumed your lil' man's eyes would change as he got older. Darken, just fuckin' lose the red tint, _something_. 

Guess you were wrong. 

"Dave." Keep your voice level. Calm. Don't give him a single fucking reason to connect you with the guy you saw on the videos on your brother's phone. "I feel like it's been a while." 

"Longer for you than me." So, he's gonna stay behind you, not come sit down. You guess you understand that; where he is, he's in a safe place, got some power over you, doesn't have to try to decide whether to look you in the face or not. "Five years, right?" 

"You w—you were two, last time I saw you." Dammit. Your voice wavers, just for a second, and you correct for it before you think. Shoulda just let that break be there, kept talking. "Three weeks 'til your third birthday. Lil' man, I ne—" 

_Fuck._ You hear the way he inhales when you call him that, and you know you fucked up. The temptation to keep talking, try to fix it—that's there, but what the hell would you say? You don't have a snowball's chance in hell to guess the right words to defuse the mines that the man who was and wasn't you planted here. 

Shut up. Just shut up. 

Dave's silent too, for long enough that you start wondering if he just walked out silent as he came in. But no, you're wrong again. 

"So you figure out that you're not my real Bro yet?" 

Ouch. Cruel, but you guess that (from his perspective) you've earned that shit. 

"Are you sayin' _he_ was?" The phone's still on the table where you dropped it when you couldn't take any more memories you didn't have a hand in making; you reach out, flick the corner to send it spinning in place. It's not a great substitute for just smashing the goddamn thing into a fuckton of lil' bits like you want to, but that would definitely send the wrong message. "Whatever he was I don't want any part of, period. Don't mean I'm not your bro." 

Again, the kid goes quiet, but this time it's more because he needs a moment to circle around the table (giving you as wide a berth as the room will allow) and snag the still-spinning phone off the table in a motion that's too quick and smooth to be normal. 

Dammit, you should have seen this coming and it _still_ steals the breath from your lungs for a good three seconds. "Oh _fuck_ you're one too." 

Kid doesn't even give you the courtesy of a glance. Too busy flipping through shit on your brother's phone. "No clue what you mean." 

"C'mon, li—kid. _Dave._ Don't bullshit me." If you dip your head down and pull hard against the cuffs, you can just barely tap the suppression collar around your neck with the tip of one finger. "This ain't just for show, and it sure as hell ain't _my_ kink." 

Oh, now he looks at you. Those eyes ain't changed, not shifted even a single shade from the color they were when his mother handed him over to you, when you held him to your chest and whispered his name for the first time. 

"You fucking hate mutants," Dave says, and apparently the man who raised him taught him how to cover shit up, because you can barely tell there's emotion under that calm statement of what he considers ironclad fact. Much less identify which one it is. 

You're gonna guess...anger. Seems the most likely suspect, from the info you have. 

"I did. Kinda had some time to rethink shit." 

"You had thirteen _fucking_ years to rethink shit." Oh yeah, that's anger, and he's struggling to keep it all under wraps. " _This_ was what did it? Fuck, we coulda bypassed all the shit you put me through by just fucking handing you over to some weirdo scientist? That fuckin' easy?" 

"Dave—" 

" _What_? Got a fucking argument for me?" He crosses his arms over his chest, shooting you a glare that feels like a dare to give him something he can take as picking a fight. "Gonna shut me up? That's always so fucking _easy_ for you, isn't it?" 

Kid's _shaking._ What the hell did you _do_? "That's not—" 

Amazingly, it's not Dave who cuts you off this time. No, this time it's the intercom. 

" _Dave, walk out._ " (You can't tell which of the spiky lookalike kids it is. Dammit.) " _Unless you actually_ want _to beat the crap out of him. In which case I suggest you stay and let him keep talking for another minute or so; you're getting close to losing it, bro._ " 

There's some muffled sounds on the other end of the intercom. Then your brother says, " _No, nope, beating the crap out of Ambrose ain't on the table right now, okay? We're already gonna have a mess to dump on the shrink this week—_ " 

"Oh, my god." Dave groans and tosses the phone he's been clutching on the table. As you try and fail to catch it before it lands, he snorts at you and drops into the empty chair, flicking his hair back from his eyes. "D, can you send in—" 

There is no warning. One moment, there's a phone on the dull metal surface of the table and that's it; the next, there's also a puff of black feathers that resolves itself into one very pissed-off crow before you can wonder how the fuck feathers got there. You _swear_ the damn thing takes the time to give you a dirty look before it walks across the table and hops onto Dave's outstretched arm. 

"That's, uh...that's something." 

"Neet." 

"Good word, but I woulda personally gone with something that's got a lil' more _what the fuck?_ to it." 

" _Her name is Nietzsche,_ " one of the spiky kids says dryly. " _As you can see, she's special._ " 

"What the hell is it with you guys and understatement, exactly?" 

"Special's the best word I can think of for her," Dave murmurs, lifting the crow up to kiss the top of her head. His eyes stay fixed on you, though. "What do you want, man?" 

"I—" 

Fuck. _Fuck._

This is a test. You've been through more of them than anyone can count, in the last five years, and you know one when you see one. This is a test, and you can see so many ways to fail it—the kid knows what he wants to hear (and you can guess) but he's also a Strider. He's _your_ kid, and for years he saw nothing but the worst possible version of you; he'll know if you're just saying what he wants to hear. Not to mention, D's listening in and he knows how you lie better than anyone else; you be less than sincere here, and shit's gonna hit the fan. 

Fuck. This ain't really about what _you_ want at all, and you know it. 

You spread your hands, as well as you can, meet those familiar red eyes like you ain't about to flip a coin that's probably gonna come up as your own broken heart. "I think I forfeited my chance at having the right to want shit about ten years back, kid." 

For a moment, you know that's the wrong answer. Something in Dave's posture changes, in a way that hits a painfully resonant chord of recognition in your chest—it's how _you'd_ react, to the presence of the bastards who took you from him. You fucked up, you answered wrong, you cemented your existence as nothing more than the image of the man who hurt him, and you better take one last good long look at your lil' man. This is gonna be the last you ever see of him. 

Neet hops off Dave's lap, walks across the table, and stops directly in front of you. Looking at her is a tad less painful than looking at your kid, even when she follows up her inspection by croaking and hopping down onto your lap, pecking at the polished metal of the cuffs (and, incidentally, the raw patches of skin under them. You bite your tongue.) 

When you look up again, Dave's watching you. 

Are you supposed to say something. 

Guess not, because he sighs, looks up at the ceiling, and says, "He's coming back with us." 

" _Absolutely not. Bad idea. Awful. Simply horrible._ " 

"Thanks for the input, Hal, but I'm not fucking asking. Either he comes back with us, we fit two more into the house instead of one—"

" _Ooh, that'd be three, actually?_ " Huh, that's a new voice. " _I did some sniffing around and found one more kiddo to pick up—_ " 

"Wade, what the hell did you do?" 

" _Oh, you'll see. They're_ super _excited to meet you._ " Wade's tone's been pretty playful; it goes deadly serious as he continues. " _I'm guessing option two is I take you and...Ambrose, right?_ " 

"Please stop calling me that." You spent ten years of your life making sure no one knew your goddamn name. This is quite literally one of your worst remaining nightmares. 

" _Well,_ Ambrose, _consider this your one and only warning—whether D takes you home with him, or I take you and Dave on the road, you're on your last strike. Hurt Dave in any way, you're dead. Instant KO. I think I'm mixing sports metaphors here._ " 

"You are." Dave rolls his eyes. You ignore him, in favor of looking up at the camera in the corner. 

It's a pretty solid ultimatum. You know _exactly_ how you want to answer it. 

"I hurt Dave, you got my permission to put me down any way you want to." 

" _Nice, glad we agree._ " 

"No one's killing anyone. Neet, c'mere." The crow ignores Dave until he clicks his tongue; then she abandons her painful quest to steal your shinies, hopping back over to him. She's only there for a second, though, just long enough to accept two smaller metal items before heading back over to you with them in her beak. "Big one does the cuffs, little one does the collar. I'm not comin' over there, sorry." 

"Nah, I get it. Thanks." You have to spend a minute figuring out how to get your wrists loose without dislocating anything, and another one just considering the smaller key. "...y'know what, actually? Catch." 

He does, hand darting out way too fast to be believable when you toss the two keys over. The look he gives you when he realizes he has them both doesn't need words; you've gotten that same unspoken _are you stupid?_ from D often enough. "You do know that collar's damn near indestructible, right? Like, without this there's no way you can—" 

"Kid, when you're ready to take it off, you can. Until then?" You give him your best charming smile, tap the smooth metal ring locked around your throat. "Can't be any worse than house arrest." 

Somebody on the other end of the intercom stifles a laugh. Dave doesn't go that far...but he does smile. Which is good enough, for right now. 

You'll work on the rest of it. God knows you'll work on it. It's the least you can do, to make up for all the shit you'll never remember doing.


	6. Chatlog

artificialIntellect [AI created the memo "Discussion of Strider Rules For Our Newest (And Possibly Temporary) Family Member"!

artificialIntellect added timaeusTestified [TT], turntechGodhead [TG], tartareanTycoon [TT], technicolorGladiator [TG], and deadPool [DP] to the memo!

DP: Well, _one_ of us is going to have to change. And it's not going to be me. 

turntechGodhead left the memo!

AI: Yeah, in hindsight I shouldn't have added him. 

TT: I'll keep him updated in DMs. This does have a lot to do with him; he deserves a say. 

TT: aight how about somebody fills the guy who's been fucking nonexistent for ten years or whatever the fuck in on who the hell everyone is? I got D, I got Deadpool, other'n that I'm fucking lost. 

AI: Guess.

TT: I think he deserves to know who's chewing him out, actually.   
TT: This is Dirk. artificialIntellect is Hal, who's my twin. Sort of.

TT: kiddo I was there when you were born. you know that, right?    
TT: well. technically not right when you were born. couple hours after.   
TT: fuck    
TT: D. did you have two fucking kids and like. lose one somehow? what the hell?

TG: i think i'd fucking know about that ambrose

TT: yeah see that's another thing—don't I gotta change my goddamn name at some point?   
TT: y'all said I died; isn't there gonna be some kinda problem if I pop back up without picking up some kinda new alias or some shit?

AI: Nope.

TT: We looked; there's virtually no record of your actual name. I can't even find the records of a driver's license for you.

TT: yeah, haven't had an official one since I was like fifteen.

TG: (please dear god do not take that as a fucking challenge you two) 

AI: D, you _know_ we'd just hack into the DMV and give ourselves licenses if we failed the test one too many times. Driving without one is too risky.   
AI: We'll get you one...assuming you convince us you deserve it.

TT: cool, how about it not say fucking ambrose on it? 

TT: Again, you're stuck with that.

TT: dammit.

TT: The good news is, you _do_ need to choose a new handle.

TT: goddammit that's the opposite of good news. do you kids not know what the fuck good news is?

TG: sorry but i'm with the twins on this one bro   
TG: like dave's had that account blocked for two years cause of automated messages and shit that you set up   
TG: not you, the other you   
TG: i mean you could get a whole new fucking account but changing the handle and color oughta kinda fix it   
TG: scheduled messages come up with the same settings the account had when they were scheduled, dirk n hal can set up a net to catch that shit 

TT: why the hell would I set automated shit up this far in advance?

DP: I for one suggest that we _don't_ get into that. You won't like the answer, I won't like explaining it, Dirk'll have to come up with an explanation for why he suddenly stopped giving Dave a play-by-play of this chat, it'd be inconvenient in general.

TT: I can bullshit well enough that Dave's not going to instantly realize that he's not getting the live version, but I agree with Wade anyway.   
TT: We'll get into the details of your inimitable shittiness at a later date and a more... _intimate_ setting.

TT: god damn that's creepy as hell.   
TT: give me a couple minutes to think about who I wanna be this time around?

tartareanTycoon is now royaltyReincarnate [RR]!

AI: ...

TT: ...

DP: ... _interesting_ choice.

TG: in his defense, its from a running joke we used to have   
TG: jesus fuck that was a long time ago

RR: no it wasn't?

TG: oh   
TG: yeah i guess not so much for you huh

RR: so I wanna keep a fuckin memory of when shit was really fuckin good for both of us, fuck off.   
RR: you two happier now?

AI: Yep!

TT: On that specific issue, at least.

AI: Oh, yeah, we have more issues.   
AI: As in, the actual title of this memo. Rules, for you.

TT: Number one: you and Dave don't end up in the same room without anyone else there. Period.

AI: He'll probably nope out anytime it looks like he _would_ be alone with you; if you follow him, we kick your ass. With lighting.   
AI: Number two: you don't question any of his decisions.

TT: Advance warning of some of the ones you're probably not going to have too high an opinion of: he's in a relationship with an alien, he has either three tattoos or one really big one depending on how you count, and he helps us with protective kidnappings of mutant kids.

TG: meta kids   
TG: goddamnit okay that was force of habit sorry

RR: hey back up n run that by me again? y'all kidnap mutant kids?

TT: Only if they ask us to.

RR: ...huh.   
RR: well shit, need another volunteer?

AI: No thanks.

TT: We'll consider it.

DP: You're in!

TT: Really, Wade? _Really?_

DP: Hey, he might get shot and you get an adult who can walk into all _kinds_ of sticky situations with some chance of passing as someone who belongs there. Sounds like a win-win to me.

TG: literally no part of that sentence was reassuring to me as a parent

AI: It's fine, D.

TG: not really a helpful statement there hal

TT: It's fine.   
TT: Number three: you do not fucking retaliate on whatever Dave does.

AI: Most of the time he's probably going to realize he hurt you, go into lockdown for a while, and apologize afterward.   
AI: That's what he's done every time we hit a trigger, anyway.   
AI: Impromptu number four because I only now thought of it: no puppets.

RR: what?

TT: Puppets. You know, the things you move around, stuffed, you used to make weird sex toys out of them?   
TT: None of those. _Especially_ no Cal.

RR: cal   
RR: shit   
RR: what happened to cal? jesus shit I can't fucking believe I forgot about him until now...

DP: I kind of blew him up.

RR: hey why the FUCK would you do a stupid thing like that?

DP: It seemed necessary at the time!   
DP: Actually it still does. Dave's still not so good with that kind of dummy, thanks to you.

RR: ...other me.

TG: other you

RR: does it count as suicidal ideation if I'm seriously envisioning my hands around that fucker's throat right about now?

TT: Believe it or not, we've actually discussed that very question with two separate therapists.

AI: They both came to the conclusion that it's not _technically_ a suicidal thing in and of itself, but it probably needs to be addressed further.

TG: forgive me but i'm pretty damn sure that ambrose is having a different crisis than the two of you did

RR: I'm not having a goddamn crisis, D.

TG: yeah sure and you're not gay either   
TG: king of self delusion is what you are

RR: right, because you're SO much better at shit, bro.   
RR: remind me again who had to have his brother ask the hot chick out for him? because it sure as hell wasn't me.

TG: nah you just had to call me to come talk you out of the date that you literally set up because halfway through the romantic dinner fuckin kevin leaned over and kissed you and you had a crisis

RR: that wasn't a crisis either, fuckwad!

DP: (Hey, how long should we let them keep reminiscing like this?)

AI: (As long as we can get away with. I'd like to see how many embarrassing things they'll dig up.) 

TG: okay yep we're done thanks very much

RR: hey, if you think I'm done you got another think coming.

technicolorGladiator kicked royaltyReincarnate from the memo!

DP: You know, as much as I like to see him go, he _is_ the entire point of this memo, so...

deadPool added royaltyReincarnate to the memo!

RR: does everyone other than me have mod powers on this fuckin thing or something?

TT: Got it in one. Now, which rule were we on? Four?

AI: No, I did four. Four is no puppets.

TT: God damn it, Hal. Four was supposed to be about not missing therapy sessions.

AI: And about Rose's sessions not counting as therapy sessions. Don't forget that.

TT: Well, I wouldn't forget it if _somebody_ didn't decide to tack his additions into the center of the list instead of adding them on to the end, where they _belong._

AI: I'm confused; "they" as in me, or as in my additions?

TT: You're not confused, you're just an ass.

DP: I'm really seeing the family resemblance here.

RR: y'know, I wanna argue. really do.   
RR: too bad I can see all the parallels plain n clear right in front of me...anyway, are y'all done actin like some asshole who doesn't want me to date his daughter?

AI: D's right; you really do have no sense of self awareness.

TT: Do you have _any_ idea how bad that sounded.

RR: uhhhh.    
RR: now that you mention it? yeah.   
RR: does it help when I point out that most of the times I heard that shit, the problem was more that I was talkin to them at all than that I was gonna sleep with them or whatever? like you have no idea how pissed some guys get when somebody points out that they're full of shit and I can get her a better job that DON'T keep her under his goddamn thumb for the rest of her life.

DP: Ooh.   
DP: I'm starting to see where you two get the rescuing tendency from.

AI: Shut _up._

TG: i'm with wade

TT: Yes, you are, but that's not up for discussion right now.

TG: wh   
TG: goddamnit dirk leave my love life out of this   
TG: dave picked up a lot of shit i used to do, you two picked up some of bros stuff without even realizing it   
TG: ambrose's stuff   
TG: not bros   
TG: ambrose's

RR: stop fuckin doing that.

TG: doing what?

RR: pretending I suddenly ain't your bro.   
RR: fuck, D, far as I know I've always been your bro. you're dropping that 'cause of him, not 'cause of me.   
RR: I'll own all the shit he did if that's what you fuckin want—hell, that don't even got a damn thing to do with you, I fuckin saw myself doing that shit and even if it wasn't me it might as well have been. it's gonna take a long fuckin time for Dave to look and me and not see that fucker, and I fuckin know it, I know I gotta make up for everything he did, and I know y'all ain't gonna ever stop treatin me like I'm gonna snap and end up like him.   
RR: maybe that's a good thing. fuck, it probably is a good thing.   
RR: but huge fucking chunks of the guy y'all had are still in me. everything he was, I am, other'n those ten years I didn't fuckin get.   
RR: I'm still two-thirds him, and y'all are just tossing all that out with the fuckin trash, and it fuckin sucks so bad I don't got a good word for it.   
RR: ...did everyone just fuckin leave in the middle of my tirade or some shit?

TT: We're all still here.

AI: Dealing with the fact that yes, we need to adjust our perception of you at least a little, but still here.

DP: D's making weird sounds. Possibly crying.   
DP: Strike that "possibly."

TG: i'm gonna kick you out of my room wade

DP: No you won't.

RR: sorry, man.

TG: eggs n omelets   
TG: yeah that doesn't make sense even to me   
TG: i need a couple minutes

TT: I think we're going to just scrap the rest of the list, for the moment. Hal?

AI: Yeah. We covered the big triggers; everything else can be addressed as it comes up.   
AI: Dirk and I should have a reworked identity for you in a week or so.

TT: Just don't get arrested or give any interviews before then and everything will be fine.

TG: if you think hes ever given an interview without being under duress youre one hundred percent wrong

RR: untrue

TG: the ones that end in you getting laid dont count

RR: dammit

AI: _O_ kay, that's enough information for today!   
AI: Welcome to the family, Ambrose.

artificalIntellect closed the memo!


	7. Chapter 7

TG: go find ambrose

TG: what why    
TG: what did he do

TG: jeez d can you chill for a couple minutes here   
TG: this aint a call for help on my end dont worry   
TG: on his end maybe though   
TG: rose keeps me updated on shit that pops into her head involving me and apparently almost anything that has to do with him has to do with me   
TG: either that or i get the honorary title of adult in charge when its him whos got into some shit   
TG: not that hes in shit   
TG: i dunno man but rose says somebody should go find him and its not gonna be me   
TG: definitely not gonna be hal or dirk   
TG: i got a feeling he doesnt need to sit there and get passive aggressively snarked at until he jumps off the roof

TG: okay okay i got it    
TG: is he actually on the roof or is that a figure of speech?

TG: now how would i know where he was d    
TG: i mean yeah actually i do keep track of him when hes in the house and as far as i know he didnt go anywhere near the door so the roof is a great guess   
TG: plus like   
TG: its the roof 

That last sentence only makes sense when taken in context, you think. "The roof" isn't just a location for Dave and Ambrose (and to some extent you, and to some extent probably all Striders), it's a range of emotions that range from anger to solitude to determination, incidentally linked to not just the cover of a building but any high, defensible place. To anyone else, "its the roof" isn't gonna mean a thing, but to you? 

You get it. 

TG: yeah ill check the roof first. 

* * *

He's on the roof. More accurately, he's _still_ on the roof, despite the fact that it takes you a good twenty minutes to haul your out-of-shape ass out the window and up onto the one spot where you feel like you can safely make it up there with him. (God fucking damn it, it really is time to figure out how to add some kind of ladder up here. Either that, or have some of the kids teach you the better way to climb up.) 

Still. Ambrose is obvious the moment that you roll away from the edge and sit up. Dude's already closer to the edge than you are, legs swinging over the edge and headphones that you recognise as Wade's hooked around his neck. If he actually had them on his ears, you'd be hella worried about his hearing; even fifteen feet away, you can hear the screech of lyrics that just barely blend into the guitar line. 

"Heya." Don't fall. You're not gonna fall if you just walk across the roof, right? God damn it how does everyone else do this without ever looking down at exactly where they're putting their feet. Eh, at least you do make it over to sit down next to him, just a lil' further back. "Who'd you steal the music from?" 

"Rosie." It takes him a moment of poking to get the player to pause; yep, that'd be Rose's all right. She tends to fuck the screens up enough that it takes twice as many taps to do anything. "She's got my taste in music. Plus if I sit there 'n let her talk at me long enough she'll treat me a hell of a lot more like a normal person than most of 'em." 

Ouch. "They'll get used to it eventually." 

That gets you a laugh. Not much of one, though, and he keeps poking at the screen instead of looking up at you. "Are you sayin' we ever gave up on shit before?" 

"Hey, kids are supposed to be better than us, right?" (Unfortunately, they're not. At least not in this respect. It's still gonna take a while longer for shit to settle down to totally normal, if that exists.) "Rose get you down?" 

"Nah. Well, yeah." Ambrose huffs out a deep breath and unhooks the headphones from around his neck, cursing under his breath as he has to stop to untangle them from his hair. "She's too damn smart. Doesn't stop talkin' until I'm the one talked into a corner." 

Dammit. That doesn't sound at all good. "What corner is it this time?" 

"The one where I start thinking about California again." While you're still processing that calm statement, Ambrose drops the headphones in his lap, leans back far enough to rest most of his weight on his elbows, twists to look up at you. Fuck, you're still not used to him without his shades. "Or maybe Texas—y'know, Dave keeps talkin' about how I took him there? Fuck, man, did I seriously go back to that dumbass state?" 

"Believe it or not, yeah you did."

" _Please_ tell me it was Austin." 

"Sorry, Bro—you settled down in Houston." 

"Oh my _god._ " He shifts his weight off his left side so he can facepalm with that hand, moving his fingers apart just enough to peek at you between them. "What the fuck was wrong with me? Like, beyond all the other shit I don't remember—" 

"You don't remember it because you didn't _do_ it, man. Don't forget that." 

"Might as well have." 

"Ambrose..." 

You stop talking, after that one word. Part of it is that you don't know what the fuck to say to that shit. Hal and Dirk still see him as the same man they hired a mercenary to kill, Rose sees him either as someone who needs help or as a puzzle (you still can't tell which), Roxy sees him as another possible partner in crime, Reaux sees him as an interesting new family member. You, however, are in the same boat with Dave; you don't know how the fuck you see him. 

As your brother, you guess. Kind of. 

Doesn't really translate to knowing how the fuck to tell him to stop being an idiot. Well, other than... "Stop being an idiot." 

"Fuck you." The fact that he _doesn't_ laugh after that is kind of telling. Like, there's no malice, veiled or otherwise, but it doesn't come across as ironic jokey shit. "I'm not gonna move back to Houston." 

"That's a relief—" 

"San Antonio." 

"Ambrose, I swear to fuck. Are you serious?" 

"What, you can't tell anymore?" 

"I haven't been able to tell in like eight years, dumbass." 

Again, those orange eyes flick up to you, and yep, you perfectly followed the ancient ritual of _open mouth insert foot._ "So about the time I forgot up to, then?" 

God _damn_ it. "Y'know, I'm pretty sure that getting cloned ain't even close to the same as amnesia or whatever the hell you've decided is the best excuse to beat yourself up." 

"I'm not fuckin'—" 

"Liar, liar, I'm gonna set your pants on fire." Okay, so you don't really _want_ to get any closer to the edge, but you have a pretty convincing argument in favor of doing it anyway. Family shit wins out over fear, and you scoot close enough that you could dangle your legs over the edge if you wanted to. Which you don't. "Like, do I need to call my kids off? I know Dave's not going after you—" 

"Be better if he did." 

"Why?" 

Ambrose shrugs and closes his eyes, settling a little further back. Enough so that he can pull his arms forward, cross them over his face in a gesture that you know looks more defensive than he realizes. "Watchin' him dodge me fuckin' _hurts,_ man. Like—goddamnit, I could watch every fuckin' video your two have, sit there 'n go through every minute of all the shit I recorded—" 

"Hey. All the shit _he_ recorded. You know it wasn't really you." 

"No?" Fuck, but you wish he'd take his arms off his face. "How the fuck is it not?" 

"Ambrose, what the hell are you trying to argue here?" 

"Either I'm him, or I ain't _me._ I—" He stops there, breath obviously hitching as he struggles for either composure or words, shifting to rub at his face with both hands like that's going to get rid of the layers of pain and frustration he's been accumulating for who knows how long. "I _remember_ shit. I remember—meeting you at the fuckin' hospital, hours 'n hours late, you were passed out but you woke up when I walked in to see Dirk. I remember deciding I wanted a kid, just one fuckin' kid 'cause you weren't gonna have another one 'n Dirk needed a lil' bro. Having both of 'em, Dirk 'n Dave, on the floor, that stupid fuckin' shag carpet that we had to—to go through, check 'n see if there was anything Dave was gonna pick up 'n eat—he never got anything, _once_ did he get something, a bobbin from that old sewin' machine you picked up 'cause you thought I'd use it to make shit faster—" 

"I remember that." God, that was so fucking long ago. He never did use the damn thing, either, and as far as you know the next person to rent the apartment you left got a free Singer. 

"Of course you fuckin' remember that, D, _you_ were there." Oh, and now he does take his hands away from his face, and you're actually struck silent by the look on it—and even more by the fact that there's tears in his eyes. "I _wasn't_ , 'cause I'm not fucking _him_! Everything says I am—you know they pierced my ears, when they—when they made me? Pierced 'em, left me with the studs Reaux gave me—except _not_ those, Dave told me _he_ still had 'em, put 'em on Cal's shirt like pins, medals or some shit—and then fuckin' _took_ them, knocked me out 'n took the studs out of my fucking ears so the holes'd heal over 'cause that _fucker_ stopped wearing earrings when he went back to Texas? I still got a tattoo on my shoulder, the one _you_ gave me, except you _didn't_ , it wasn't you, nothin' about me leads back to you, none of it leads anywhere—" 

Alright, enough of this. "Sit up. C'mon," 

He does, at least partially because you scoot over and hook your hands under his arms, pull until he _has_ to give up and push himself up off the roof. As soon as he's more-or-less in the same position as you are, you wrap your arms around him and pull him in for the kind of hug that you give the kids when shit's well and truly fucked. 

(Which it is.) 

Ambrose freezes, for a good five seconds. Funny, because you're pretty sure that you were the one who used to freeze—you couldn't do close contact back then, not when you still wore binders and sure as fuck not for years after surgery, it took you fucking forever to get used to being this okay with shit like this. Once the fact that you're not going to let go sinks in, though? Your brother leans in, loops his arms around your waist, and just starts _shaking._

Again, you recognise your own kids in him. Dirk and Hal, that's how they both cry—quietly or silently, only when they're close enough to any spectators that it doesn't count as being watched. Fuck, but that realization's almost unfair. 

Nope. You're not thinking about whether that's parental shit or just the classic big-bro protectiveness that's putting an ache in the center of your chest. Doesn't fucking matter, anyway—either way, he's family, and your job right now is just to hold him through this shit. 

It takes a while. 

Then he takes a breath that doesn't catch in the middle, relaxes his deathgrip on you, and murmurs, "I oughta go back to Texas." 

Oh, for fuck's sake. "Why?" 

"Dave—" 

"Dave has a fucking trauma disorder, Ambrose. Why the fuck do you think you're gonna make that go away by retracing the shit you don't remember?" 

"That ain't—" 

"Yes, it fucking _is._ You think shit's gonna get better if you add some distance? You think that's not just gonna make it harder, next time he sees you?" 

Ambrose actually pulls back at that, and he doesn't stop until you let go of him. Hell, he doesn't stop until he's scooted back from you, closer to the edge than before, close enough that you find yourself shifting back just so he'll accept the space between the two of you as enough and fucking _stop_ already. And he does stop, eventually, way too close to that drop than you like, staring at you with a near-perfect poker face. "Lil' man's better off without a next time." 

You take a second to consider that. 

Then you get your feet under you, reach over there and grab a handful of your dumbass idiot brother's shirt. He doesn't resist when you stand up and haul him to his feet—too suprised—but he doesn't help you either, which means you end up dragging him halfway up before he grabs your wrist in what doesn't even count as an attempt to get loose. If anything, you'd guess he just doesn't want you to touch the collar that Dirk and Hal put on him months ago. 

You're fine with that. It's not really your place to handle that little piece of hardware, as long as it's not hurting him; no, _your_ job is to shake some sense into this idiot, whether it be metaphorically or literally. 

"Did you even fucking _consider_ , oh, I don't know—fucking _asking_ Dave about that plan?" No, you don't actually shake him. For one thing, you're not too keen on physical shit as emphasis; for another, even though you've pulled him a couple feet back, you're way too close to the dropoff for your personal comfort. "How far did you get, planning it?" 

Ambrose seriously considers either clamming up or outright lying. You see the way his eyes flick to the side and back to your face, like he thinks you don't know him well enough to catch him lying by now. In the end, though, you get an honest answer. "Got ID, got money, I figured I'd hitch down a couple states and get a card to buy plane tickets with—" 

"Oh my _god—_ you were seriously going to try and disappear. Weren't you?" You have to let go of him with one hand—this isn't a situation where you can just _not_ facepalm. "You know Dirk and Hal would've told me when you went to them to get the collar off, right? Or was that not a factor you thought about?" 

"I mean..." He has the grace to look at least a _little_ ashamed of himself here. "Figured out how to get that off after...maybe a week?" 

" _Ambrose._ Did you actually test that, or...?" 

"It's not all _that_ complicated, D—" 

"My children tend to wire booby traps into shit. You're lucky you didn't fry your brain, if such a thing exists." 

"Nah." He shrugs, reaching up past the hand that you've still got twisted into his shirt to tap the side of the collar. "Found that 'n took it out. Fiddly lil' fucker—I seen some of the shit Hal's been working on, it looked like him. Kid's good as me with electronics." 

The fact that there actually _was_ an anti-tampering device of that caliber in that fucking collar is not really reassuring. (Especially since you _know_ that Dirk and Hal test their customized suppression collars on each other.) "Great. You can keep teaching him everything you know, because you. Are. Not. Leaving." 

"It'd fix shit." 

"I am _this close_ to punching you." When he looks at the hand you're using to demonstrate how close that is, you let go of his shirt with the other hand in order to smack him over the head. It's a trick the two of you used to use as teenagers; you've never actually had him fall for it before, probably because you didn't really have a reason to use it on him. The fact that he _does_ fall for it kind of strengthens the point that yeah, he's your bro—as does the betrayed look he gives you as you lower your hand. "What? Planning on saying you didn't deserve that?" 

"Nah, I did." 

"Right, you did. But that's _all_ you deserve—mostly because you didn't get past the whole planning thing." You cross your arms, take a step back, give him a glare that almost certainly doesn't have any room for interpretation in it. "You know we'd've found you, right? You're good, but my kids, they're _mutants._ They can find damn near anything they want to—we would have found you, dragged you back, collectively kicked your ass, and been at therapy on Wednesday right on schedule." 

It is _ridiculously_ obvious that he wants to argue that point. You can see the way his jaw sets, like he's personally offended that anyone _dares_ be better than him at his areas of expertise. In the end, though, your kids' abilities aren't what he calls into question. "Why?" 

"Because you're not even _close_ to what you think you are." 

You're not the one who says that. Nope, that'd be Dave, who's just boosting himself up onto the roof when you turn to face the sound of his voice (and god but the easy time he's got of it makes you feel either old or out of shape. Possibly both.) "All right, who talked you into eavesdropping?" 

"Who says I didn't do this shit on my own?" Dave pulls himself all the way up, rolls to his feet in a movement that makes you way too nervous, and holds his arm out; a moment later, Neet pops into existance at just the height needed to latch onto his bicep, letting out a satisfied croak as he strokes her head. "But yeah, it was Rox." 

"They're an _awful_ influence on you, you know that?" 

Ambrose isn't as into the kind of off-topic small talk that Dave tends to let everything spiral off into before he gets to the point. "How long you been listening, kiddo?" 

If you needed any proof that Dave's pretty damn far past misidentifying Ambrose as the man who raised him, you get it from the way that the kid just cocks his head and grins with a confidence that's truly amusing. "I mean, long enough to almost climb up like four times already. Y'all get _way_ too quiet when you're discussing shit; I should've taken Hal up on those bugs he offered me." 

" _Please_ don't." You can think of about a dozen ways that would make your life a hell of a lot more awkward. More interesting too, probably, but not in a good way. 

Again, Bro isn't going to get sidetracked. "You know what I wanna do, then." 

"Uh, yeah?" 

"Then—" 

"The problem here is, _you_ don't have clue one what you want to do." Dave takes a couple steps forward, Ambrose takes a step back, you grab his arm before he can take that last step that there isn't room for. "Do you?" 

"I'm goin' back to Texas." 

"Bzzzt." (Neet instantly imitates that, with an eerie amount of success; it gets all three of you humans to stop and look at her for a couple seconds. From the way she preens, you're guessing that was the point.) "You want shit to go back to normal. For you, for me, for everybody. Am I right?" 

"That's—" He has to stop and think about it, before giving Dave a slow nod. "Yeah. Close enough." 

"Alright, lemme refine it, then. You want _me_ to be normal." 

"I'm not sayin' you ain't!" 

"Well, why the fuck aren't you?" When Ambrose just shakes his head instead of trying to answer that, Dave keeps talking. "Like, you know that it doesn't stop if you disappear, right? I'm not saying you _could_ disappear—D's right, Hal and Dirk can track just about anyone—but let's say you did. Let's say you were gone. Let's say we never opened that door; hell, we never found that lab, right? As far as I know, you don't exist. Got it so far?" 

You nod, because Ambrose apparently doesn't get that that wasn't quite a rhetorical question. He gets it once he sees you, though, which gives Dave the cue he wanted to continue. 

"Fine, you don't exist. Y'know what?" Dave spreads his arms; Neet squawks like it's an insult to her personally. "I'm _still_ fucked up. Scars, PTSD, everything. That's all still there, because _you didn't have a fucking thing to do with it._ " 

"Kid—" 

"What? You think all the triggers just fuckin' evaporate if you take off?" 

"A lot of them, yeah!" 

Oh, shit, you know that stubborn look that flashes across Dave's face. Trump card time. "You think they all went away when Wade killed _him_?" 

Trump card, indeed. Ambrose's face goes completely blank for a second; as far as you know, Dave hasn't actually brought up the fact that he saw Bro die to him before. Has to be some flavor of shock. That second's all Dave needs; he shrugs and turns away, walking towards the spot he climbed up from. Before he gets to the edge, one of Roxy's portals opens under his feet; Neet takes flight right before he steps into it, disappearing under her own power before the dark void closes behind him. 

You look back over at Ambrose. He kind of looks like Dave suckerpunched him, instead of just pointing out a couple relevant facts. "You still thinking about running?" 

"...not sure." After a second he shakes his head, looking up from the last place Dave was visible to you and raising an eyebrow. "No. Who the fuck taught him to debate, exactly? 'cause I don't think I ever had that kind of dramatic flair goin' on." 

"Of course you did, you stupid gay dumbass." You roll your eyes and sling an arm around your brother's shoulders, pulling him further back from the edge. "C'mon. Let's get the hell off this roof."


End file.
